Sketchbooks

NB! IF YOU NEED TO STUDY THE BOOKS FURTHER. IT IS AN ADVANTAGE TO DOWNLOAD THE BOOK. SO YOU CAN ROTATE THE VARIOUS PAGES LIKE YOU WANT. The library has a collection of some 300 sketchbooks containing drawings and water colours executed by architects on study journeys in Denmark and abroad. The main emphasis of the collection is on the period from the beginning of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, and demonstrates how architects, especially young, newly-trained ones from Denmark, documented and drew inspiration from their travel impressions More

Focus

The focus of the collection is on the period from the beginning of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century and documents the way the period’s architects, especially those who were young and newly qualified, supplemented their training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts with study journeys, primarily in Germany and the countries north of the Mediterranean, Greece, Italy, France and Spain, as well as in the Danish islands and Jutland.

Content and relevance

The sketchbooks, which only rarely contain sections of actual text, document through accurate drawings the architects’ itineraries and destinations. They show what type of buildings, building ornamentation and other building embellishments in addition to monuments and works of art, caught their particular interest.
The sketch books reveal the individual architects’ sources of inspiration, which can often be read directly in their later oeuvre, just as, in a broader sense, they provide information about the taste of a given period, while telling us, indirectly, about the travel routes and early tourism in Europe. They document the well-developed drawing skills which were the result of training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and which put the architects in a position to represent what they saw with outstanding precision.
They thus represent valuable aids to architectural historians, restoration architects, and conservators, as well as historians of art and culture, both professional and amateur.

How do I search?

Via the Library’s catalogue, looking up under the name of the architect in question and the search terms “Skitsebøger” (“sketch books”) or “Rejseskitser” (“travel sketches”).

Digital versions

A significant number of sketchbooks have been scanned and reproduced in high resolution, and it is the intention to digitalise all the sketchbooks in the near future. The digitalised sketchbooks should be sought by pressing the orange field to the right. The digitalisation has been undertaken partly to make them accessible to those most interested, and partly for preservation reasons. The general rule is, therefore, that it is not possible to order the originals of the digitalised sketchbooks with a view to borrowing them.

Reproductions etc.

Scannings of the drawings in the sketchbooks may be ordered. We refer those interested to the library’s terms and conditions for the use of reproductions from The Danish National Art Library (see the section on Photo-service and Copyright) and point out that the responsibility for the clarification of any artistic copyright lies with the borrower.